Fire union, chief at odds over safety officer

Updated 10:49 pm, Sunday, January 13, 2013

BRIDGEPORT -- For one hour and 36 minutes on the night of Dec. 30, the city's West Side did not have firefighters nearby waiting to respond to an emergency.

Instead, those firefighters were battling a blaze on Colorado Avenue.

And, because of a new policy implemented just a few days earlier, both of the city's on-duty assistant fire chiefs were at the Colorado Avenue fire -- instead of ensuring another available engine and ladder truck were sent to the West Side.

Union officials point to that glaring error as one of the many reasons why a new system meant to ensure there is always an incident safety officer available doesn't work.

And, after losing two firefighters in the line of duty in 2010, union officials are ready to fight for the previous system, which they say did what it was supposed to do -- reduce the chances of losing another colleague.

"It was, for us, a part of the legacy of these two guys -- to make the job safer," said David Dobbs, vice president of the fire union. "This isn't political. This is about making the job safer."

In that fateful fire, the department's incident safety officer, who is required to be on scene for help during a fire, didn't arrive until more than 20 minutes after the initial dispatch.

Because of this, the department switched its policy in August 2011. Instead of having one of the five training division supervisors on call on nights and weekends, that person would be paid overtime to be on duty at those times. The five officers would all continue to work their regular day shifts and would serve as safety officer on a rotation.

Robert Whitbread, president of the fire union, showed the Connecticut Post a document the union sent to Fire Chief Brian Rooney soon after the policy switch. The document warned Rooney that relying on overtime during the pilot program could cost the city up to $250,000.

That is the exact amount Rooney said the pilot program cost him.

The union's idea was to change the training division supervisors' shifts so that some of them would be scheduled to work evenings and weekends on a normal schedule, instead of the day shift.

Instead, the chief placed the training officers back on an on-call basis and said if the western half of the city has a fire, the battalion chief for the eastern half would serve as safety officer until the on-call officer arrived.

"The incident safety officer is a pretty critical role," Dobbs said. "He's going to see how the fire is progressing and whether they're winning or they're losing the battle."

There is a benefit to having trained eyes watch the action from start to finish, Dobbs said.

While firefighters have their assigned duties and the battalion chief serving as incident commander manages the scene, the safety officer can focus solely on evaluating the overall scene.

That includes -- but is not limited to -- monitoring radio transmissions, weather conditions, firefighter behavior and the equipment used, and the effectiveness of the tactics used.

Dobbs and Whitbread said Rooney's plan, implemented last month, falls short of NIOSH's recommendation.

The second battalion chief on every shift has his own duties, they said. These duties include relocating companies and serving as the contact person for other municipal departments when mutual aid is necessary.

Rooney agreed the safety officer position is important, but he said the previous system was costing the city too much money. He disagreed that the union's plan would have worked better.

In one recent case, the union claimed, the on-call safety officer who was supposed to replace the assistant chief wasn't even called until a half hour after the firefighters were dispatched.

"I think my system is better," Rooney said, adding that an assistant chief's knowledge and skill makes for a better safety officer and it keeps all training officers working a day shift.

"That system that they wanted to do I thought would fragment our training division," Rooney said. "Even just trying to run it with three people is very difficult because there are so many things that we're obligated to do."

Not only is the training division required to ensure everyone keeps up with required training, Rooney said, but the division also does maintenance work, including testing equipment and lining up annual physicals.

Whitbread conceded that the training division has very important duties, but he said their job can be done just as well on evenings and weekends. "I've spoken to people that will be working in that division and they said training won't be an issue," Whitbread said. "We discussed at length that a lot of it can be done in the evenings. They even get two extra days during the week."

The men also dismissed Rooney's stance that when an assistant chief is needed elsewhere, someone else trained at the scene could take over the role.

"Yeah, (someone) who is already doing something," said Dobbs, shaking his head and wringing his hands as he laughed in frustration. "And once you take the officer away, communications may have trouble identifying people on the ground."

Dobbs, who is trained as a safety officer, said if he was pulled out of his supervisory role during a fire, he would make his guys sit the fire out.

The union vice president said there is no way he's leaving his team in a fire without proper supervision and direction.

"There's nothing that prevents the chief of the department tomorrow from enacting our stuff," Whitbread said.

"It's offensive to me because this was born out of the most horrific event you can have as a fireman," said Dobbs, his voice softening. "It's offensive that they're not giving it a chance to work."